Finding Absolution
by darlsonalice
Summary: This story follows the events of Finding Retribution
1. Notification of Absence

I apologize for the false excitement of a notification, but I felt that this was important to relay.

I will be backpacking for the next two months, until June 24th to be exact. Until then, I will not have access to a computer, so I will be unable to write. I am sorry that I was unable to publish the first chapter before leaving, which was something that I really hoped to do.

I will see you all in a little over two months when I get back and have time to write. Thank you for your ridiculous patience and understanding!


	2. Cancellation Notification

To my lovely and devoted readers,

Unfortunately, I must announce that Finding Absolution is now canceled. I cannot continue to write this story due to personal reasons. I understand that this is quite unkind of me considering how much I built up and foreshadowed FA during FR. However, out of respect to the readers, I will be posting my story map, which is essentially where all the plotlines were going. It will be nothing like reading the actual story, but at least you will get to see what happens and why certain characters ended the way they did in FR.

I apologize if this is a huge letdown to you guys and I thank you for your support throughout the making of FR!


	3. Epilogue

As you may know, I cannot finish writing Finding Absolution due to personal reasons. Thus, I am provided a summary of the events that would have happened if FA had been written. I am doing this as a courtesy to those who truly cared about FR, especially since I left many character's endings open. This is not written in story format, but rather as a guide that I would have used to write the actual story. Enjoy!

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In the final chapter of FR, we see Robin with a host family as part of a witness protection program set up by the Titans and Batman in advance of his kidnapping. Annually, at the date of Robin's liberation from Slade, the Titans set up a public meeting with his foster parents so that they can see his progress. However, they do not actually interact with him, as this could cause a return of memories. Occasionally, Raven is called in to remove memories that are returning, but only when extremely necessary (Robin is never aware of this).

Robin's foster parents are people chosen by Batman and commissioned solely for his protection. They are adept fighters that retired from special services and are not actually married. However, they have fabricated an entire life for Robin, including pictures that have been doctored by Batman and his associates. Dick Grayson has a grave site with a separate date of death than the Robin memorial has. Bruce Wayne has officially declared that his son died while travelling in the Himalayas. Batman has made no declaration, as it is well known in the community that Robin went rogue.

During Robin's rehabilitation at his foster home, the Titans are split, with Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven working together, and Starfire splitting her time between Tamaran and Earth. She has not officially joined them in their organization. Robin is in therapy, aimed to solidify the fake memories provided for him. His therapist was appointed by Batman and is solely meant to move Robin away from his violent emotional problems and towards a normal social construct. Robin is under the impression that he was in a severe car accident that gave him memory loss and the multitude of scars on his body. However, he is plagued by nightmares filled with violent imagery. These nightmares consist of both memories, fears, and worries, so not all of them are actually real. He avoids reporting the majority of these to his therapist, as they feel too real and he doesn't want to talk about them. While he does believe he is who they say he is, he does not believe that they are telling him everything.

During the final chapter of FR, a mysterious figure is seen looming in the distance, watching Robin. This is revealed to be Clark Evans. The motivation behind Clark's obsession with Robin is explored more. Clark was married and had two kids, one of which was his daughter named Mara. Victor Wyatte, the New York crime boss, had heard incoming news about Slade's entrance into the city and knew that he would be targeted. Knowing that Slade had a main agent, Robin, his plan was to disrupt their mission by prompting his (Robin's) investigation. To do this, he attempted to put word of an assassin into the police department (most of which he pays off regularly), but this was to no avail. None of the officers had enough motivation or ability to actually find and identify Robin. He knew that he would need a more personal motivation. So, one of his most trusted officers, Vince Burtes was told to execute a plan against Clark. Being Clark's friend, he refused, but was threatened with his family's safety. Thus, he agreed and went to kill Clark's daughter, Mara, and frame Robin and Slade. However, when faced with the fire that he had started, and seeing Mara on the edge of death, he was unable to go through with it and pulled her out in time to ensure her survival. However, the majority of her face and body was severely disfigured. Clark followed the clues directly to Robin, placing blame for his daughter's disfigurement and subsequent failing marriage on Robin (and Slade). With nothing left to lose after the divorce and loss of custody, Clark comes back from France with a full vendetta against anyone involved (he does not know about the framing). Thus, his next target is Slade, but he soon finds out that Robin is not actually dead. Upon finding him, he initially plans to kill him, but then realizes that Robin has no idea who he is (after talking to him). Thus, he would be of no use to bring Clark to Slade, which became his next goal. Instead of killing Robin, he starts stalking him, constantly talking to him about how he isn't being told everything. This really sets off Robin's suspicions and causes him to actually seek Clark out. Clark's goal is to bring back enough of Robin's memory to get Slade's location, as Slade has gone off the map and Clark has no resources with the police anymore.

Robin begins remembering more and more of his time with Slade as he spends time with Clark. One day in particular, he remembers a slaughtering (a recurring dream), that he realizes was real. This sends him into a frenzy, where instead of helping Clark in any way, he immediately leaves the city. Bruce becomes aware and notifies the Titans, who begin executing their emergency retrieval plan. They assume he is going back to Slade. Using the information provided to him from the internet, Clark, and his shattered and conflicting memory, Robin goes to Jump City, hoping to remember more about his past. He is making his way to break into Titans Tower when he is met by Red X (still dressing as Robin). Red X brings him into the tower and spends a few days telling stories about Robin's hero days. However, he is reluctant to provide even the little information he knew about Robin's abduction and slavery. During this time, Robin struggles to figure out which memories are real and which are fake, often having conflicting memories for the same date. When Red X is out taking care of business (his organization running the city), Robin goes to the trophy room of Titans Tower, which Red X left untouched. Robin looks at various artifacts from villains that they have stopped, occasionally remembering parts of the battles, until he comes upon Slade's mask. After spending some time looking at it and handling it, he becomes very angry and leaves the room, taking it with him. He leaves without telling Red X and illegally boards a ship to France (upon reaching the East coast), remembering that Slade had some sort of residential plans there. He is unaware that Clark has been following him, attempting to get to Slade.

Upon arriving in France, he heads to Versailles, visiting various places that he remembers and solidifying memories of their plans, however brief the memories are. He does not remember where any of their bases are and becomes discouraged after wandering to find nothing. Slade is made aware of the stowaway immigrant and reluctantly seeks Robin out, but only in hopes to send him home. Slade is now completely running the underground of France, placing his larger plans on hold until he reconfigures them. He has taken place as the head of the families and rules them in fear, eradicating the policies that he doesn't agree with (sex trafficking) and putting new ones into place. He brings Robin home to his manor, where Robin demands to know what happened to him and why he was kidnapped. Slade, very unemotionally, explains that he needed a competent worker to help him take over cities. As Robin tries to press in more on the nature of Slade's plans, Slade shuts him down. Robin asks about certain missions, having Slade confirm them as true to life. He stays in Slade's manor for a few days, coming to each horrible realization of the things that he has done. After nearly a week, Slade demands that he go back to America, to which Robin asks why he let him go without much of a fight (now remembering the final battle between them and the Titans). Slade explains that although he still had hopes for Robin's rehabilitation, he had contemplated killing Robin several times during their stay in France. Robin had become too much of a risk to the mission and to himself, nearly jeopardizing everything they had built. Slade knew that with his mental state at the time, releasing him would be impossible (Robin would never adjust to normal life or hero life again). He also knew that Robin had too much information on his plans. Thus, he had actually intended to kill Robin, but decided against it several times. Once Robin infiltrated the sex trafficking organization, Slade decided to wait it out and give Robin the last chance. When the Titans interfered and killed Robin, Slade walked away simply because he knew that he was likely going to do the same thing anyways. He figured it would be better to cut his losses than get petty revenge against the Titans for doing his job. Within weeks of the death, Slade figured out that it was faked, and planned to go and kill Robin himself for the sake of protecting information, but stopped when he realized that Robin had no memory. Upon hearing this, Robin was taken aback, remembering pieces of his mental break, but was still horrified at the revelation. He thought that Slade would kill him right there, but Slade assured him that if he left, he would let him live (given that he didn't share any information that he remembered).

Robin left France the next day, leaving Clark behind in France without knowing it. Upon landing in the U.S., he is immediately kidnapped. He wakes up in a holding room with a double glass mirror. A voice speaks to him over the intercom, explaining how he had no power in the situation and that his compliance will assure his livelihood. After a few days in the room, tied in a strait jacket, a woman in a business suit comes in and speaks to him. She identifies herself as Amanda Waller and tells him that she has been watching him ever since his alliance with Slade. She says that his skills, while being used incorrectly, were extremely useful, especially to a person like her. She tells him that he has two options: work for her, providing a valuable service to the public, or go to Arkham Asylum for life. Robin debates which would be a worse fate. Amanda explains that while he will still be assassinating, he will not be doing so for simple takeover, but for gang control. Upon reluctant agreement to work for her (simply out of disdain for Arkham), she tells him more about ARGUS. She explains that she had wanted to recruit him, but did not want to spend valuable resources in trying to remove Slade from control. Thus, she guided the Titans with information placement whenever she could, even going so far as to recruit Cyborg for ARGUS, simply so that it would be easier to lead the Titans to him. When Cyborg wanted to go to France, she took the opportunity to force him into an agreement to recruit the other Titans (at least 2) into ARGUS. This is how and why Raven and Beast Boy are with Cyborg and ARGUS.

She keeps Robin in a separate wing for two months, not informing the Titans about his presence, and trains him to keep stable mental health. The Titans and Batman have been searching for Robin again, but after his capture by Waller, his trail went dark. They commence their execution plan, which is to kill Robin upon sight if he is found again. However, at a team meeting with Cyborg, BB, Raven, Bodil Virko (Cyborg's teammate), Katya Stankevich (Cyborg's teammate), and Waller, she brings Robin in with his new uniform and new name (Nightwing). She explains how she bargained a deal with Robin and that he would be their new undercover missions' specialist. Naturally, the Titans have mixed emotions and post-meeting, inform Batman that Robin is now found, but untouchable. Starfire is brought back to Earth upon hearing the news. The first few days, Robin avoids his teammates whenever he can, but once team training starts, he is unable to avoid them. Conversation mostly consists of tactical planning and ARGUS missions. Once Starfire arrives, she seeks Robin out in private, prompting a conversation between the two where Robin admits that he cannot even apologize after all that he did.

Meanwhile, Clark confronts Slade after executing a carefully planned coup on the French families. The plan does not work completely, but causes enough trouble to where Slade comes out of hiding and directly seeks Clark out. Upon meeting, Clark explains how Slade has to pay for what happened to his daughter. Slade laughs and tells Clark the truth about how his friend staged the accident and framed Robin. Clark refuses to believe, even as Slade provides compelling evidence. As Slade brings Clark to his knees, he tells him the truth about Robin, about how he killed hundreds of people, even a few children, but never harmed Mara. As Clark begins to truly wonder if his friend had done this to his family, Slade kills him.

Bruce, as Batman, confronts Amanda Waller, threatening to destroy ARGUS and everything she stood for, but she informed him that she had several people with full information on Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne. If something were to happen, Robin would end up in Arkham, and everyone in the country would know exactly who he was and what he did. Upon hearing this, Bruce reluctantly backs down, saying that he will be keeping track of Robin. After a few months with the team, Robin finally sets out on his first mission, which is to take out one of the higher ups in a cartel. During the mission, Bodil dies, due to a mistake on Robin's part, and Katya leaves as a result. She goes off the grid, but Waller still is determined to hunt her down. This leaves Robin and the team alone after the mission is concluded. Starfire temporarily agrees to remain on Earth as Robin transitions. The team is more wary of him than anything, wanting to make sure he doesn't go off the rails. Amanda's newest project: the Suicide Squad, has Robin as the leader, while the remainder of the Titans stay on their original team (all per Amanda's orders). Robin spends time in the head of the Joker, realizing how mentally broken he himself had been for years. While he runs the start-up of the new team, he spends time with the Titans, getting to know them again (many of his memories have not returned, especially the old ones of childhood and being a Titan). They come to see that aspects of the old Robin have remained, but only behind his rigid and war-torn exterior.

The last scene shows them all sitting around a mission table, talking in a very relaxed manner about their upcoming mission in Bludhaven. As the Titans banter, Robin makes a comment and laughs, causing everyone to pause, as for the briefest moment, it was like they were Titans again.

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This is a very brief summary of my plans for Finding Absolution. Of course, much of the detail that would alleviate plot holes and round off character development is not included, so the plot is not completely smooth. However, for what it is, I believe that it answers many questions that FR left behind, ties together many of the loose strings that I left purposely, and provides general closure. I am aware that this does not completely conclude for characters like Red X, Katya, and Robin's foster family, but their plots are so minor that any further elaboration would simply be filler in this.

Thank you for your dedication to this story and I hope that this makes you feel slightly better about the cancellation of FA.

If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to review or message me.


End file.
